


love must first shatter us

by everyfragment



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyfragment/pseuds/everyfragment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yusuf thinks about dreams and dreamers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love must first shatter us

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at http://gyzym.livejournal.com/51243.html?thread=1705771#t1705771

"Why don't we just meet at yours?" Eames is fiddling with a coin, making it dance across his knuckles. His eyes are closed, and Yusuf knows that he finds tricks harder to pull off when he's concentrating on them.

"I don't mind, but you'll have to bring some form of payment. I'm starting to believe you live with me."

Eames grins. "I only like you for your sofa, mate. Don't let it go to your head."

*

There are thirteen unstoppered test tubes in his living room. They are lined up on the bureau next to the window, and on quiet evenings he watches the sunset filter through them, colouring them in deeper hues than he would have thought possible. 

"I prefer sunsets in Mombasa," he tells Eames. "I have never seen the colour bleed out of the sky elsewhere."

Eames pauses, his head cocked to the left in consideration. "October in London when the leaves are orange and there isn't a cloud in the sky. I sometimes stop in he middle of Angel and wonder if I wandered into a city that isn't horrible, wet and cold."

Yusuf laughs and switches on the TV. When he glances back outside, it's the glow of the city lights that greet him. 

*

The window in his room is always open - a habit he hasn't grown out of since childhood. The curtains move silently in the breeze, and he makes a quick note on his chart as he squeezes the bulb of his pipette, carefully. The compound stays blue and he pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. 

Eames' snores filter into his thoughts, the regularity and volume both calming and amusing him while he considers changing the oxide levels. It's early morning already and he should probably leave the solution to rest and try to tweak it tomorrow. Eames mumbles in his sleep, and Yusuf has to walk out of his room to check he hasn't kicked the blanket off again. 

He never asks why Eames prefers Yusuf's sofa to his perfectly well furnished apartment because he doesn't need to. He picks up the edge of the blanket and tugs it to cover Eames' shoulders. The tight pinch of loneliness around Eames' mouth has begun to disappear. 

*

Sometimes, he misses India. Sometimes, he misses London. Quite often, he just misses travelling. 

His family are in Mumbai - scattered around Sion and Dadar. He takes the bus when he goes back, clutching the leather handles and jostling for elbow space as he (and everyone else) reads to avoid eye contact. There is a bookshop near Nariman Point: two bus rides and a brisk walk, and he's being handed feverish writings on dream sharing and the psychology, the philosophy, the ethics and the why, the why, the why. 

"There are too many problems, boy. You can't touch what is in other people's heads without it touching you, too."

Yusuf listens, and he reads and he thinks of formulas and adding the nitrogen before the second stage, instead the third. 

They sit in the sunlight, and he listens to them argue about feelings of grandeur and madness.

When he closes his eyes, he thinks of men who travel in their dreams.

*

Eames had walked into his lab, and his life, on a Monday at 7 in the morning and looked surprised to see him there. 

"I was told I could only catch you between 1 AM and 9 AM. I thought they were lying."

Yusuf had looked at the boy in front of him - hair falling in insolent eyes and fingers making nervous tears in a piece of paper. 

He had smiled and gestured at a stool. 

"I like seeing the sunrise while I work."

Eames had looked suitably impressed and watched Yusuf check a vat that was exuding fumes. 

"Are you making a bomb, or something?"

Yusuf hadn't answered for a few minutes, and had then carefully extracted a container. 

"No. I had a craving for pistachio ice cream yesterday. Would you like some?"

"Does the University realise this is what you're wasting their precious funds on?"

Yusuf had taken a bite and grinned, "The Dean prefers strawberry."

*

"Do you think this is going to drive us mad?"

Yusuf turns to Eames, and Eames clearly has something on his mind. 

Yusuf looks down at his hands, at the iodine stains under his nails. He thinks about dreaming and dreamers staggering into his shop, looking, searching for something that he can only direct them towards. He thinks about days, and afternoons, and evenings, and nights spent on his sofa with bottles of wine and conversations about the universe. He thinks of Eames' smile growing more open, and he thinks about closing his notebook and letting his experiments lie until the morning. 

"Probably not."

*


End file.
